Not a Complete Stranger
by Mute Mockingbird
Summary: My first attempt at Nymphadora's interaction with Ted Tonks. Sort of a sequel to Late Night Chat. Set during HBP.


**Not a Complete Stranger**

Nymphadora Tonks, daughter of muggle-born Ted Tonks and pureblood Andromeda Tonks, nee Black, hated many things at the moment. She hated her given name. She hated the contrast between her given name and her surname. She hated her mousy brown hair and common brown eyes; she hated the multicolored persona she hid them behind; she hated her current inability to morph. She hated the Black in her for hating all things Tonks, but she knew that it was with a hatred typically Black that she hated the Black in her, and she hated that, too.

She even hated her mother, which was absurd. Andromeda Tonks was bedrock; Nymphadora had needed that growing up, she needed it now, but just now she resented it. The woman had torn herself up by the roots and re-planted herself in strange soil; by what right had she grown so rooted that she was rootedness itself? By what right was the woman so at home in the universe she had built up again from scratch, when Tonks wandered untethered through the very world she had been born into?

She was even beginning to hate Remus for setting off this whole chain reaction of hatred. Dear Remus, who for so long had carried the weight of everybody's fear and distrust and, worse, macabre fascination, without complaint. Dear Remus, who had made a man and a scholar out of himself, when everyone expected the little werewolf boy to grow up into an animal. Dear Remus, who had smashed her heart to bleeding bits in his condescending assumption that he knew what was best for her. Dear Remus, with his selfishly selfless refusal to give her, or himself, what they both needed.

And if she kept up rehearsing to herself all the things she hated and all the reasons why, she'd just keep coming up with new things to hate. She needed a new perspective, and so she had come home. (Her flat was where she slept and kept her stuff, a sort of permanent sleepover with no one else around; her parents' house was home. And Tonks needed to talk to Mum.)

She didn't precicely want a new perspective, which was why she had walked instead of Apparating. You can always turn back while you're walking, but it's a bit rude to Apparate somewhere, change your mind, and Apparate away. But Tonks needed to talk to Andromeda even if she didn't want to, and so she rang the doorbell. But it wasn't Andromeda who answered the door.

"Dora!" Ted Tonks exclaimed as he opened the door, "This is a surprise."

"Wotcher, Dad," Tonks said, "Where's Mum?"

"She just went to go grocery shopping," Ted said, "and you know how long she can be about that. But come in; you look like you came to talk."

"Well—" It wasn't that Nymphadora didn't like Ted. He just didn't understand Nymphadora's Black moods (pun intended). How could he?

"Or don't talk, if you don't want to, but come in! Andromeda made chocolate-chip cookies just the other day, and there are still some left." And with that, Nymphadora found herself dragged inside, seated at the kitchen table, and presented with a jar full of chocolate-chip cookies.

They ate cookies for a while in relative silence. Ted tried to begin a conversation more than once, but Nymphadora's replies were monosyllabic and noncommital.

"So, how's the job going?" Ted would ask.

"Fine," Tonks would say. And that would be that. Her job was fine, her social life was fine, the Order of the Phoenix was fine; the world would be fine if it crashed flaming into the sun.

Finally, Ted's smile faded to the faint, contemplative smile he wore when he was about to say something and he wasn't sure how the hearer would take it. "You came to talk to Andromeda, didn't you?"

Tonks stared at the half-eaten cookie in her hand and nodded.

Ted leaned back in his chair. "You're very like your mother, you know. When we were first married, your mother would go all silent on me from time to time. I could swear that I loved her till I was blue in the face, and she believed me in a way, but she didn't believe that I could or would understand her."

Nymphadora had never tried to see this behavior from Ted's point of view. "And did you understand?"

"I couldn't understand—because she would never explain. But I'm her husband, Dorie, I'm your father. You've figured out by now that I don't know everything, but I'm not completely stupid, and I'm not a complete stranger, and I didn't marry one Black, and raise (I see) another, without picking up a thing or two."

Nymphadora stared rather intently at the remains of the cookie. "I don't think you're stupid," she finally said.

Ted shrugged. "I'd think a man was stupid, if I thought he couldn't understand his own daughter. I'll understand if you don't want to talk to me, but don't pretend that it's just because I wouldn't understand."

Nymphadora stood up and took the empty jar back to its place on the counter. Ted sighed and stood up. He was about to walk away from the table when Nympadora finally made up her mind and turned around.

"Dad, wait," she said. "I—that is, I'm sorry. I would like to talk. It's just, it's been one thing after another, and—"

And, as Ted grinned and went to grab some more cookies from his secret stash, Nymphadora sat down and tried to find the words to explain how everything had seemed to be falling apart recently. "Well, you've heard me talk about that Remus guy, Sirius' friend—" she began. And she didn't stop for some time.

THE END

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AN: Yes, people, I know it's bad. I think this fic started off alright, but it went downhill fast and I don't know how to rescue it. Review, please, and tell me what I have to do to improve this story! 


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